At Sérignan Fabre is little known and little appreciated. To tell the truth, folk regard him as eccentric; they have often surprised him in the country lying on his stomach in the middle of a field, or kneeling on the ground, a magnifying glass in hand, observing a fly or some one of those insignificant creatures in which no sane person would deign to be interested.
How should they know him, since he never goes into the village? When he did once venture thither to visit his friend Charrasse, the schoolmaster, his appearance was an event of which every one had something to say, so greatly did it astonish the inhabitants. [(15/8.)]
Yet he never hesitates to place his knowledge at the service of all, and welcomes with courtesy the rare pilgrims in whom a genuine regard is visible, although he is always careful never to make them feel his own superiority; but he very quickly dismisses, sometimes a trifle hastily, those who are merely indiscreet or importunate; pedantic and ignorant persons he judges instantaneously with his piercing eyes; with such people he cannot emerge from his slightly gloomy reserve; he shuts himself up like the snail, which, annoyed by some displeasing object, retires into its shell, and remains silent in their presence.
Professors come to consult him: asking his advice as to their programmes of instruction, or begging him to resolve some difficult problem or decide some especially vexed question; and his explanations are so simple, so clear, so logical that they are astonished at their own lack of comprehension and their embarrassment. [(15/9.)]
But there are few who venture within the walls of that enclosure, which seems to shut out all the temptations of the outer world; the only intimate visitors to the Harmas are the village schoolmaster--first Laurent, then Louis Charrasse [(15/10.)], and later Jullian--and a blind man, Marius.
This latter lost his sight at the age of twenty. Then, to earn a living, he began to make and repair chairs, and in his misfortune, although blind and extremely poor, he kept a calm and contented mind.
Fabre had discovered the sage and the blind man on his arrival at Sérignan, and also Favier [(15/11.)], "that other native, whose jovial spirit was so prompt to respond, and who helped to dig up the Harmas; to set up the planks and tiles of the little kitchen-garden; a rude task, since this scrap of uncultivated ground was then but a terrible desert of pebbles." To Favier fell the care of the flowers, for the new owner was a great lover of flowers. Potted plants, sometimes of rare species, were already, as to‑day, crowded in rows upon the terrace before the house, where all the summer they formed a sort of vestibule in the open air, on either side of the entrance; and these Fabre never ceased to watch over with constant and meticulous care. Both spoke the same language, and the words they exchanged were born of a like philosophy; for Favier also loved nature in his own way, and at heart was an artist; and when, after the day's work, sitting "on the high stone of the kitchen hearth, where round logs of green oak were blazing," he would evoke, in his picturesque and figurative language, the memories of an old campaigner, he charmed all the household and the evening seemed to pass with strange rapidity.
When this precious servant and boon companion had disappeared, after two years of digging, sowing, weeding, and hoeing, all was ready; the frame was completed and the work could be commenced. It was then that Marius became the master's appointed collaborator, and it is he who now constructs his apparatus, his experimental cages; stuffs his birds, helps to ransack the soil, and shades him with an umbrella while he watches under the burning sun. Marius cannot see, but so intimate is his communion with his master, so keen his enthusiasm for all that Fabre does, that he follows in his mind's eye, and as though he could actually see them, all the doings at which he assists, and whose inward reflection lights up his wondering countenance.
Marius was not only rich in feeling and the gift of inner vision; he had also a marvellously correct ear. He was a member of the "Fanfare" of Sérignan, in which he played the big drum, and there was no one like him for keeping perfect time and for bringing out the clash of the cymbals.
Charrasse was no less fervent a disciple; he worshipped science and all beautiful things; and he could even conceive a noble passion for his exhausting trade of school-teaching.